I have pretty much run out of interesting TV series on Netflix, and so yesterday I watched a couple of films. One is one I’ve been telling myself for a long time I should see, and the other was one I didn’t know existed but it was science fiction, so I’ll always give that a shot and if it’s completely stupid I can always turn it off in the middle, which is a big advantage to home viewing. I liked the latter much more than the former.
The one I’d been wanting to see was Bladerunner 2049. I was among those who said “No, this is a movie which should not be made. The original was perfect.” Then, people who were also fans of the original Bladerunner began seeing it and reporting that it was pretty good. Maybe not as good as the original, certainly not as ground breaking, but worth seeing.
I wouldn’t go so far. It did have some good moments. I quite enjoyed the scene where his holographic girlfriend melded with the (completely human) hooker, so they could experience real sex together, but the premise itself, that a replicant had had a live birth, was stupid. If it wasn’t designed to give birth, then it’s not going to give birth. Also, it was a 3 hour movie which could have been easily cut down by half just by reducing all the long, pensive, no action scenes by half, because that was pretty much all of them.
I’d give it maybe two stars out of five, and they would be distant, dim stars at that.
Oblivion was much less hyped. Tom Cruise was Jack Harper, Tech-49, one of the few people left on Earth fighting the aliens while the rest of the human race has buggered off to a new colony on Titan. Or so they say. There’s a shift of perspective in the middle which changes everything and which I did not see coming.
Lots of fast action, some cool tech, a couple of hot women. I’d give it 3 and a half stars, which is pretty close to 4.